Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

While watching an episode of Frasier I had a real laugh out loud moment. Daphne and Niles were debating what they should call their child and Daphne was rolling out a series of names.

One of the series was “Tanner, Tailor, Hunter or Fletcher”? To which Niles replied

“It sounds like you are reading from a book of Medieval Professions.”

I really let out a good laugh at this and it made me think how times have changed. I think that during the middle ages people were very proud of their professions -the things and contributions they made. They closely identified with their profession and from this pride a bowyer might call his son fletcher, and well… you get the picture.

Why don’t we stay true to this tradition anymore? Would it be okay for me to name my children webber, seller, clerker, driver or teleseller? LOL It just doesnt seem to be the same!

If I had big ambitions for my children maybe I could call them Investor, Developer, CEOer or Banker? Nah, just doesn’t seem to work.

And another interesting change to this whole thing is that in the middle ages they didn’t job hop like we do now. You started out as a smith and right there at that anvil you worked your whole life. No touchy feely thoughts about maybe next year I will try being a farmer or an artist. Nope, you were a smithy and your name was probably smith!

And how would we solve the job hopping dilemma in todays world? The same way marriage names have changed? So, as a persons careers changed so would his name become hypenated? Hi, my name is Janitor-Cashier-Manager-Regional manager Smith!  lol

And there is something to be said for putting the cart before the horse. Can you change things by changing your name?  Picture two students in a classroom;  one is named Investor Jones, and the other is named Janitor Smith. Would this tag of having a name change the reality of each student? Would the teacher treat Investor Jones differently than Janitor Smith? hmm… something to think about and in hopes of this actually working I am going to change my name to Lottery Winner Will! Wish me luck.

Cruising around looking for medieval stuff I ran into the Real estate listing for this castle in the Austrian Alps!

A little under four million dollars is the “negotiable” price!! Whoa!

60 or so rooms and 12 guest rooms. Can you imagine?  Anyway, wouldn’t it be the absolute coolest to actually live in a real Medeival Castle?

 One of the great things about a castle like this is that it probably has quite a remarkable history! The website tells us that it was built around 1268 and the chapel was twice consecrated by bishops who went on to become popes!

Just freaking amazing - My hallucination is that this becomes the corporate headquarters for stormthecastle.net

Anyway, if you want to take a peek or if your checkbook, unlike mine, is just bursting at the seems check it out here: Medieval Castle for Sale

If you don’t have the resources to buy a ready made, 750 year old castle you might want to consider building one yourself! This is what I did Although not on quite the same scale!!

Take a peek my castle here: The Battle Between Good and Evil

The new forum is starting to heat up and looking through the threads I found one that somebody started about mead. It doesn’t get more Medieval than mead and it really got me thinking about making some!

Mead seems to be wrapped up in our psyche as a mysterious drink that has been passed down to us through the centuries and well, I guess it is just that. And one of the things about mead is that it is written about a lot but it is not very well understood. How many times have you read an epic fantasy novel and joined the main characters in a tavern for some mead? Probably often. Anyway, I didn’t know anything about mead either so I had to look it up.

 Mead: It is an alcoholic beverage made with honey and often spiced up with other flavors like vanilla or cinnamon, and, there are plenty of variations that include various fruits like pears. The big thing to know about mead is that it is neither a wine nor a beer but mead! You have to give it its own class of drink. It is believed to have been made as long ago as 8,000 years and it was the preferred drink of everybody until wine came along. But wine was more expensive and considered better so royalty and wealthy people preferred it. And this relegated mead to the drink of peasants and common folk - until the advent of beer when they made the switch!

How is mead made?

It seems to be a simple process whereby you boil honey and water then add the fermenting yeast then let it ferment for 30-60 days. After that you bottle it then let it age for a year! Wow, I didn’t realize it had to “age” for a year. I guess I won’t be making any mead for this years Fourth of July barbecue. But if I get started soon it will be ready for next years bash! Seriously, I think I may give it a whirl. It would be fun to brew a little mead! Here is the mead thread in the forum if you want to take a peek: Mead  

eek… This is the question I had to google this morning! Seriously, I couldn’t remember her name!

 Anyway, On my hit list of things to do is write an article about the most influential women writers of epic fantasy so this morning I decided I had put it off long enough and started writing it.

It is a subject that can literally take up a whole book but to get myself to tackle the project I resolved to just pick five writers that I thought could show a nice flow of development over the past century or so.

 Anyway, the article is complete and I will be posting it to one of my websites. I will post a link to it in a future post so you can check it out.

Now, back to the author of the Harry Potter phenomenon

I have to confess that I only read the first book (when it came out) so that was quite a few years ago and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my cup of tea (excuse the british pun).

And even though I am not a big fan I really do have to tip my hat to Ms. Rowling for what she has done for  Epic Fantasy. She has introduced it to the world and a whole generation of children! What more can a fan of epic fantasy ask for? I am sure that she is the primary influence behind some young writers that will some day take the world by storm with their books. It’s an almost magical thing! <- I couldn’t resist that pun!

And the threads between her writing and the writers that have come before her are clear. She openly credits some of the other writers in my essay as an influence in her own writing. As she should. Did you know that Ursula K LeGuin wrote a book in the sixties about a young boy with hidden magical abilities who goes off to wizard school?

And how the heck could I forget who wrote Harry Potter? Have I been living under a rock this past decade? Well, I guess I really need to have somebody open the portcullis and let me out of my castle keep. It’s getting quite stuffy in here.

Sir Galahad is Welcomed t…

Everybody knows the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table. But did you know the significance of why a round table? It is an interesting thing and it says a lot about the values that were developing during the Middle Ages.

The Middle ages were a very tumultuous and difficult period to live in. There was war, barbarian hordes, plague, famine, the crusades, and many other things. The normal mode of operation was to take something by force. This is what the kings, knights and lords did. They fought, battled, killed and took what they wanted. In short there was little value placed on the individuals without power.

But through this there was a shifting in the belief systems of people and knighthood played a key role in this shifting. Along with the development of chivalry came the belief in the worth of the individual whether or not he held land or weapons. And the Round table is a good example of this raising of the individuals value.

The round table was meant to shift power from just the king who normally sat at the head of the table and spoke so everyone listened. With a round table it was symbolic of the fact that all the people seated at the table had equal weight and equal say in matters. It was almost democratic. It wasn’t a true democracy; the king was still the king and only knights were at the table. But it was a move toward the belief that everyone is important and everyone equally valuable.